Press Releases

(NEW YORK, August 13, 1998) -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Thursday that recent statements by some religious groups on their marriage doctrines are disappointing but do not affect progress towards winning the freedom to marry for lesbian and gay couples under civil law.

(CHICAGO, August 11, 1998) -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Tuesday that a federal appeals court ruling against the University of Wisconsin-Madison could choke off support for the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Campus Center and any student groups deemed political or ideological.

(NEW YORK, July 31, 1998) -- Following scrutiny of anti-gay bias at the Internal Revenue Service, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Friday that the agency has promised that its management will travel to IRS field offices throughout the country and train agents to provide fair treatment to groups supporting lesbians and gay men.

(NEW YORK, N.Y., July 30, 1998) -- The North Carolina Supreme Court Thursday overturned an appeals court and reinstated a ruling that revoked a gay father's custody of his two sons solely because of his relationship with his male partner, said Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

(LOS ANGELES, July 9, 1998) -- In a decision likely to improve workplace protections for lesbian and gay Californians, the state Court of Appeal in San Diego has given the green light to a lawsuit by a man who suffered severe anti-gay harassment on the job, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Thursday.

(NEW YORK, June 25, 1998) -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Whitman-Walker Clinic hailed Thursday's United States Supreme Court ruling that HIV disease is within the broad scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act protection from discrimination.

Lambda and Whitman-Walker are co-counsel for 16 major medical and public health associations and individual experts that are amici in the case, Bragdon v. Abbott. It was the first case ever heard by the Supreme Court concerning either AIDS or the ADA.

(NEW YORK, June 23, 1998) -- An Arkansas judge Tuesday gave the green light for a constitutional challenge to the state's criminal ban on certain private sexual activities between consenting adults of the same sex, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said.

(NEW YORK, June 22, 1998) -- In an important step in combating harassment of lesbian and gay students nationwide, the federal government reached agreement with the Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas on broad civil rights protections in the schools, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Tuesday. The "Commitment to Resolve," entered into by the federal government and the school system, remedies an administrative complaint brought by a Fayetteville student, William Wagner.

(NEW YORK June 6, 1997) -- Immigration officials Thursday refused to resolve a Russian lesbian's asylum case and instead ruled that Alla Pitcherskaia must prove to an immigration judge that she is likely to be persecuted if returned to her native country, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said.

Pitcherskaia, 36, now a San Francisco resident, seeks asylum in the United States after being beaten, harassed, and forcibly detained by both the Russian police and organized crime members for being a lesbian and advocate for lesbians' and gay men's civil rights.

(LOS ANGELES, May 27, 1998) -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is urging a California appeals court to rule against an insurance industry practice aimed at denying disability benefits to people with AIDS and other illnesses.

On Wednesday, May 27, at the California Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, Lambda will argue on behalf of Mark Galanty, who is appealing a trial court decision that upheld the Paul Revere Life Insurance Company's refusal to pay his AIDS-related disability claim.